Scheduled report in iServer Express: output to directory?

Hi,

Info: iServer Express 10 SP1 / Linux environment

A few questions:

1. I have a few scheduled reports that I would like to "send" to a directory - is this possible?

2. Can I schedule a report to be emailed w/o having output go onto the portal?

3. I've used a couple of BI tools, BO and Cognos specifically, and those tools allow you to distribute scheduled reports to email addresses that were not specifically setup as users in the system - is this possible using iServer Express (I did ask this awhile back - but I'm wondering if this is being looked into at all - or perhaps someone out there knows a workaround)?

Lots of questions around scheduling and emailing I'm sure in most companies - users don't want to go to the portal and want everything to be automated - sometimes they would even like it to read their minds ...

Thanks,

Al

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

averma

Al,

When you schedule your reports, you could configure the output location to any directory inside your encyclopedia volume you have permissions to write to. Once you have it there you can use IDAPI to download this file to anywhere on the file system through an external process.
For your second question I believe you want the report output to be attached to the email? If so, you can set up the notification to send an email notification with an attachment and choose the output format.
iServer Express will distribute notifications to users that are set up as users in the system only. As far as I know there is no workaround.

Ashwini

al91206

Answer to #1 sounds slightly complicated - but I'm glad it is possible.

#2 - really I wanted to know how to stop the output from being sent to the portal at all. When you schedule a report - I can select notification, but by default (and seemingly unchangeable is the output to the portal). Can I opt not to have the output also go to the portal (only emailed via notification)?

#3 - I would suggest that this is a severe restriction and will hopefully be revised. I don't think it makes much sense that you cannot add however many email addresses to emailed reports when you can simply forward the report from your own personal mailbox to whoever you want - a manual workaround to be sure - and something that seems completely unnecessary and which the system should be able to handle.

Some things are much easier in Actuate vs. Cognos / BO, but then a number of minor features are simply not available in Actuate. This is just an observation. All in all we are happy and I know that iServer Express is a work in progress - hopefully things such as scheduling, emailing, bursting, etc will be easier in future versions.

Thanks,

Al

averma

Hi Al, 
 
I don't see the issue that you mentioned. Can you tell me the complete steps that you followed? Are you using Information Console or Management Console? 
 
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="al91206">
#2 - really I wanted to know how to stop the output from being sent to the portal at all. When you schedule a report - I can select notification, but by default (and seemingly unchangeable is the output to the portal). Can I opt not to have the output also go to the portal (only emailed via notification)? 
 </blockquote>

al91206

Ashwini,

Basically I want to schedule a report to email w/ an attachment - and not have any output go to the portal. Is that possible?

Email the output to the user - but do not put anything onto iPortal. That is what I would like. I believe I have looked at all the options and have not found a way to stop output from being put onto the portal as well as being emailed.

When you schedule a report - it asks whether you want the output to be emailed to you - but it also puts that output file onto the portal. This is what I would like to change. The user gets the output file in their email, but nothing gets put into the portal.

Hopefully that clears up the confusion.

Thanks!

Al

averma

Hi Al,
In order for the server to send the notification with the file attachment it needs to generate and hold the output in the encyclopedia volume. If you use management console to schedule the report you could set up auto archive policy on the generated document for automatic deletion (and archive).

Ashwini

al91206

Thanks for the workaround.